The pictures of the house have been taken off the internet, so there’s nothing of interest at the link, but so what? The real interest here is that 895 Lake was the site of one of Greenwich’s most infamous fraudsters, Martin Frankel. $200 million stolen (at least), an international manhunt, eventual capture, 16+ year prison sentence and, best of all, a bevy of willing (one assumes) sex partners that the dweeb stashed here and in the other house he owned next door.
Both residences were razed and we got these structures instead, but the memories linger on.
Here’s how Grok summarizes the financier’s career:
Martin Frankel (also known as "Marty" Frankel, born 1954) is an American financial criminal infamous for orchestrating one of the largest insurance fraud schemes in U.S. history during the 1990s.
He was closely associated with Greenwich, Connecticut, where he operated from a heavily fortified mansion on Lake Avenue.Frankel posed as a successful money manager and hedge fund operator (initially through entities like Winthrop Capital under aliases).
He acquired control of several small insurance companies across states like Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas—often through a front organization disguised as a Catholic charity or foundation.
He looted their assets, siphoning off an estimated $200 million (some sources cite up to hundreds of millions more in total losses) to fund a lavish lifestyle. This included exotic cars, illegal home additions, and a bizarre personal life involving multiple women in his compound, sadomasochistic activities, and other excesses.
In 1999, regulators uncovered the fraud, leading to investigations. Frankel fled the U.S., but was arrested in Germany in 1999 on passport fraud and tax evasion charges (serving time there before extradition). He was extradited back to the U.S., where he pleaded guilty in 2002 to 24 federal counts including conspiracy, racketeering, securities fraud, and wire fraud. He was sentenced to over 16 years in federal prison (served primarily at Fort Dix FCI).He was released around 2015–2016 after serving his term but was briefly re-incarcerated for violations while in a halfway house.
He has also been linked to later mentions like the Panama Papers in 2016 due to offshore dealings.The case drew widespread attention, featured on shows like American Greed, and inspired books such as The Pretender detailing his scam, flight, and manhunt.
A fun story about the stable of women he kept on the premises was published in Time Magazine back in November 1999, On the Lam with Marty. Here’s just a snippet:
…. How Allison, a stout redhead from Gibson City, Ill. (pop. 3,600), came to be involved with Frankel is revealing of his bizarre proclivities. She had answered his tele-personal ad and flown from Mission Viejo, Calif., to meet Frankel in Greenwich. What she found when she walked into the $3 million mansion was a halfway house of sorts, a community of women gathered from personal ads and Internet chat rooms, all in the employ of this monied recluse who spent his days hunched over trading terminals in the mansion’s digitally locked bedroom-cum-offices.
“Some of the girls were his girlfriends, some of them he had sex with, and some were his ex-girlfriends. But a lot were just friends, like me,” says Allison. “It was a fun life, but the women fought all the time. I used to tell him all these people were with him for the money. But then, maybe that’s why I was there.” Whenever Allison needed money, she filled out a requisition form, usually for about $4,000. “You always got what you asked for,” she recalls.
